In a companion book to the best-selling Stories from Ancient Egypt, Joyce Tyldesley re-tells some of the most interesting and entertaining myths and legends from the Classical world. These stories tell us how the spider spun the first web, how a simple ball of string defeated the fearsome minotaur, and how Romulus founded the mighty city of Rome. The “this book belongs to” introductions teaches the reader how to write their name using ancient Greek letters, and their age using Roman numera...

Pharaoh.Icon.Enigma.Lost for three thousand years, m****isunderstood for a century.A hundred years ago, a team of archaeologists in the Valley of the Kings made a remarkable discovery: a near-complete royal burial, an ancient mummy, and golden riches beyond imagination. The lost tomb of Tutankhamun ignited a media frenzy, propelled into overdrive by rumours of a deadly ancient curse. But amid ...

Jean-François Champollion broke the code of the hieroglyphs on 14 September 1822. But this didn't yet mean understanding how old the culture of the pharaohs was, or any of its details. This next milestone Champollion achieved six years later when he embarked on a two-year expedition to Egypt and became the first person to read the hieroglyphs on the monuments that had been built along the Nile for three thousand years. Single-handedly he paved the way for the scientific expeditions that wo...

More than three thousand years ago a sculptor working in the royal city of Amarna carved a limestone bust of an Egyptian queen. The queen was Nefertiti, consort of the 'heretic pharaoh' Akhenaten. Plastered and painted, Nefertiti's bust depicted an extraordinarily beautiful woman. However, Akhenaten's reign was drawing to an end, and the royal family was soon to be written out of Egypt's official history. Not long after its creation the stone Nefertiti was locked in a storeroom and forgott...

The extraordinary mysteries of the pyramids - revealedFrom the development of monumental architecture around 3,000 BC to the fabulous edifices that rose up from the desert plains of Giza, these are amongst the most remarkable structures in world history.Their story has given rise to a set of incredible legends: spaceships, ley lines, mysterious goings on Is it fact or fiction? Joyce Tyldesley, writer, lecturer and broadcaster on Ancient Egypt, cuts away modern myth and pr...

'Concerning Egypt itself, I shall extend my remarks to a great length, because there is no country that possesses so many wonders.' The Greek writer Herodotus wrote these words as long ago as the 5th century BC, and the ancient civilization of Egypt has continued to cast its spell on historians, archaeologists and visitors ever since.Thanks to its geographical isolation, Egypt developed a unique and self-contained culture whose religion, customs, art, architecture and soci...

This volume offers a detailed case study of the internationally acclaimed online programmes in Egyptology at the University of Manchester, UK. It distils over a decade of online teaching experience and student feedback, providing guidance for instructors developing their own online offerings.Today, many universities are actively encouraging their teaching staff towards the development of:• online programmes (programmes to be taught entirely online) and/or• online un...

For over a decade Nefertiti, wife of the heretic king Akhenaten, was the most influential woman in the Bronze Age world; a beautiful queen blessed by the sun-god, adored by her family and worshipped by her people. Her image and her name were celebrated throughout Egypt and her future seemed golden. Suddenly Nefertiti disappeared from the royal family, vanishing so completely that it was as if she had never been. No record survives to detail her death, no monument serves to mourn her passin...

From Herodotus to The Mummy, Western civilization has long been fascinated with the exotic myths and legends of Ancient Egypt but they have often been misunderstood. Here acclaimed Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley guides us through 3000 years of changing stories and, in retelling them, shows us what they mean. Gathered from pyramid friezes, archaological finds and contemporary documents, these vivid and strange stories explain everything from why the Nile flooded every year to their b...

Everyone has heard of Ramesses the Great - but what is the truth behind the legend? Joyce Tyldesley's lively book explores the life and times of Egypt's greatest king. Ramesses II was the archetypal Egyptian pharoah: a mighty warrior, an extravagant builder and the father of scores of children. His momuments and image were to be found in every corner of the Egyptian empire. This is his amazing story.

She was the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt for three centuries. Highly educated (she was the only one of the Ptolemies to read and speak ancient Egyptian as well as the court Greek) and very clever (her famous liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were as much to do with politics as the heart), she steered her kingdom through impossibly taxing internal problems and railed against greedy Roman imperialism. Stripping away preconceptions as old as ...

Queen - or, as she would prefer to be remembered King - Hatchepsut was an astonishing woman. Brilliantly defying tradition she became the female embodiment of a male role, dressing in men's clothes and even wearing a false beard. Forgotten until Egptologists deciphered hieroglyphics in the 1820's, she has since been subject to intense speculation about her actions and motivations. Combining archaeological and historical evidence from a wide range of sources, Joyce Tyldesley's dazzling piec...